Jaso

Thanks all.. [i think] the plastics were either a: - 2.75 inch zoom tiny fluke in 'albino', or - 2.5 inch lunker city fin-s in 'white satin'.. I'm not certain because they are very similar, and I have them stored in a 360 box out of the packets.. its either of those 2 though. I have to admit I havent seen these lures here (I stock up from bass pro when i visit the US) but Im sure there would be something similar here... 2-3inch flick bait in a white or pearl.. Also - on the subject of the minn kota - my sounder was on all day (I know they dont consume a lot of battery strength) and was still fine, but also I have a RT55AP with the battery maximiser and the gauge to tell you the strength.. it gave me 3 bars on battery strength, and also the autopilot just wouldnt come on at all.. so I think theres definately some electronics.. its on its way to BLA as I type so it should get sorted :-)

Ok well it was a long time between drinks for me.. haven't been for a fish in my boat for about 3.5months now which is slightly embarrassing to say the least.. But Monday I took the day off work (being the birthday and all) and went into the harbour to see if the reports of Salmon were true... and they were. As I rounded North Head at the leisurely time of 9am (had to watch the world cup grand final) there were indeed schools of salmon busting up on the surface. Being a week day there were only a couple of other boats around. They were pretty fussy and would not touch small metal slices.. I was fishing with my brother and suggested he go down to a 2inch white soft plastic stick bait and that did the trick.. 2 fish in 2 casts. The salmon were not that large - possibly 1.5kg fish but still on the light gear they were loads of fun.. When the sun got a little higher the schools sounded and I didnt see them again... Headed over to sow and pigs for a change and decided to burley up and see what was in residence... leatherjackets, single trevally and the usual reef stuff.. In all a nice day on the water, except the steering and autopilot on my minn kota decided they would no longer work.. so its back to the manufacturer.. dont think its the foot control because of the autopilot (which is in the head of the 'leckie).. so we will see.. No complaints tho.. some fish and a great day to be on the water!

Was a great time on the water even though we got wet Ken. Some valuable lessons when going after schools of fish with tailor in them. After getting into the tailor the 9lb leader I was using was fraying pretty badly. Quite often the tailor would miss the hook, either bite straight through the leader (I lost my hook and lure multiple times as Ken will verify), or fray up the leader pretty bad. What that meant was that when the larger salmon were hooked, the leader eventually gave out where it was fraying. Hard to know what to do in terms of maintaining the leader carefully when you have mixed schools of fish like that (and you dont know if you are going to get tailor or salmon when you cast into the school). The action was hot when it was on, but was also intermittent at times too.. would be hard to continually cut your leader (where frayed) and re-tie the hook for every cast when the action is intermittent. You chance not getting a cast off. I'd have to say the learning to backhand cast is pretty handy when you are getting into schools like we did yesterday. I was backhand casting my flick stick while Ken was forehand casting his fly which meant we rarely got in each others way which is good for being on a small boat (actually I think only once we got caught and that was on a retrieve when both lines were in the water). Thanks again Ken - was a great time. Next time we will use my 4.2 deep-V in chop like that!! haha

OK so I haven't posted in a while. I have been v busy with work and not even surfed much in the past couple of months. Hopefully this post will contribute in some way to making amends. Im on holidays at the moment, today was my first fishing session in about 3months after being overseas and working like a dog up until the start of the break, so when I saw the weather was good and after reading Ken's (Narralakes) report on the salmon I was firing. Woke at 4:10am full of beans. Put the tinny in at Roseville ramp and was on the water by 5am. Managed to get to North head for a fantastic sunrise! I put down a manns stretch and a sluggo to slow troll around north head. Nothing showed up, although there were a few arcs on the sounder. Just as I got to open water there was a small school of salmon feeding right at the corner of north head, and here's me basically not ready for them.. or not able to get into them because of the lures hanging out the back.. so frantically wind wind wind the lures in, deploy the leccie.. AND THEY DISSAPPEARED!!! oh well.. so i hover around waiting for them to resurface, which they did for a brief period but as soon as I got within 50-80meters of them they sounded again.. and this was just after dawn! So i figured it was going to be a tough morning. So i start trolling west again inside north head and again.. a school appeared in front of me.. this time I left my lures out the back and motored up to them with the leccie.. I had 2 light spinning rods with me - 4kg with 6lb fireline rigged with a white baby sluggo, and a 3kg 4lb fireline with a crappie spider (left from previous bream session). So I threw out the sluggo to see if it swam straight.. sure enough it swam straight and was immediately chased by salmon!! WOOOOOOOHOOOO they like it!!! HOWEVER.. as I reeled in the first time I noticed I could see a bulk that was the knot between my leader and fireline.. uh oh thats not good.. oh well.. what the hell I will risk it.. So cast out again.. and this time solid connection!!! Line starts peeling off the little 2000 capricorn... all the while Im thinking "my leader is holding.. my leader is holding".. But 20 seconds later POP!!! bugger.. oh well.. that was the risk!!! Wasting no time I go to the 3kg stick with the 4lb fireline and Im wondering if it's up to the challenge.. Got the squidgy 1/16th jighead on it (those things are made a bit tougher).. So I cast out into the school.. and a couple of winds and I come up solid again So I got my ipod in my ears, the wind in my hair (or lack of hair), and solid fish on the end of a light piece of graphite.. is there any better feeling!!!!! Anyway.. 20 mins later and I finally get the fish to the surface, and another 5mins into the net. Definately a solid fish > 3kg. So here's the report on the 3kg stick.. all the fight the rod felt so good... fully loaded and bent over the rod felt so great. I've used this rod for bream and flathead many times and its very sensitive, but now I know it also has some great attributes in the power dept also! It's a IM-7 based Daiwa Procaster (Z I think) with alconite guides.. cost me $150 a couple of years ago.. very happy with it. Here's the fruits of the labour: Ok.. next I motor down to Old Man's hat and just float around because I wanted to tie a new leader on my 4kg stick. So the leader goes on, as does the offset worm hook.. And on with another white baby sluggo.. nothing around me so I throw it out to see if it will swim straight. I throw it out, and start reeling it in.. all of a sudden a whole bunch of salmon come up out of the depths and start going ballistic for the lure.. I guess I did put it on straight!! As soon as i got it close to the boat they sounded again.. but I threw the lure in exactly the same spot next cast and a few subtle twitches near the surface got them going again.. it seemed like 6 or so were going for it all at once.. so i slowed the retrieve and WHAM... on solid again!!! HAPPY DAYS. So this one also takes me about 20mins.. and by that stage there were multiple boats trolling near me and stopping to see what I had on.. I dissappointed a few cause it took quite a while to get the fish anywhere near the surface.. head shakes all round through the rod. Finally subdued him and got him into the net! Top morning all round.. the only bad part of the morning was this.. During the 2nd fight I switched on my leccie (and the autopilot) to keep me drifting on a course that would keep me off the submerged rock platform on north head.. In the meantime while i was fighting the fish several boats trolled past, including a well known professional fishing charter. Anyway.. he mustn't have realised my leccie was on, and I was concentrating on fighting the fish. He came across my bow and the next thing I knew my boat was no longer going in the same direction.. His lines that were out for trolling had wrapped around the prop of my leccie So I quickly shut it off... but it was too late and I had fishing line in with the prop shaft. He comes over to me, and apologised, but was pretty concerned he'd lost lure. To be fair I don't know if it was all his fault (cause I wasnt looking at what he was doing either), but at that point in time I didn't really care much for his lost lure.. Anyway I got home and did some corrective surgery (cause i wasnt going to lose my prop nut out in the harbour) and got the line out of the shaft pretty easy. So in all a top day.. home by 11am before it got too hot.. Great to be on holidays

I would have to agree with Iain there on Byron's knowledge of that waterway. I've fished there a little bit.. here's some basic tips: 1. At the end of this street is a little wharf and some boats tied along the shoreline. Fish from the waters edge into the drop off for flatties. There should be some bream in here but I've never picked up any. 2. There is a large sand spit that runs south. When the tide is lower you can walk out onto it and fish the drop off on the western side. 3. Dont bother fishing here.. loads of people who stay in the caravan park do but its a waste of time. The current rips thru and I've never got much there. 4. The mouth is shallow then drops away (there are usually small breakers so you can tell). Ive got flatties just on dusk here using small minnow lures. Good luck

I used to use the Little Manly ramp a few years back (small boat) - but the parking used to suck real bad... Does anyone use it - has it changed at all in the past couple of years for parking or the ramp itself (I assume its still there)? It doesnt show on the whereis UBD.. but it's at the western end of Little Manly bay:

I used to have a little 1983 4 speed suzuki sierra as my first car! Man - it was awesome. Used to leave much larger vehicles for dead on the soft sand because it was so light! Unfortunately the towing capacity was not very large, and I would suggest not to try and tow any boat over 3.5 - 4 meters in length, and only go for aluminium. On a tinny like that, its always going to be the motor thats the heaviest piece also - so if you've got a big donk on the back of a small boat then it could be hard work for the car also.

Dan McGrath attack minnow in pink :-)

Many thanks Ken for the hospitality. I had a top time, and even though the fish came few and far between (this time, I'm sure its not like that always), I'd certainly be recommending Caloundra as a great spot on the sunshine coast for a holiday. Other notable mentions about Caloundra and fishing with Ken, for those who have not experienced this first hand themselves: * Caloundra has the largest collection of super huge roundabouts of anywhere I have seen. It is my firm belief that the idea for the roundabout around the Arc de Triumph in Paris must have come from a prior resident of Caloundra. * Ken's mate Bob joined us for one session to fish. At one point he was fishing about 50metres from Ken and myself, and I pointed out to Ken that Bob had just landed a small flathead. Approx 2 mins later Bob calls out to Ken those dreaded words: "Ken, can you come over... I've got a treble stuck in me". Sure enough, after wading over to Bob we discover he has still got the flattie in his boga grips, one treble in the flattie, and one treble in his finger. Deep in his finger. After watching countless hours of 'Young Doctors' in prior years, Ken's instincts took over - he proceeded to release the flathead, and reassure Bob he was going to make it. Suffice to say the local medical centre staff were very pleased of Bob's choice of lure as he turned up after driving to the medical centre with a SX-40 hanging off his hand. * I have 2 young kids, and found Caloundra to have a vast collection of childrens playgrounds - its a great spot for young families to holiday. * When I met Ken, one of the first things he told me was that his removalists would not cart his 100 bottles of home brew down south, and that he would be forced to drink it before he moved (in 2 weeks). I could not for the life of me tell if he was dissappointed with the removalists or not. The lure in question was indeed a $5 'The Producers' lure taken from one of those 'sale' bins in a tackle shop. Pink in colour and about 5cm in length, it runs very well at slow speeds and has nailed flatties, bream and bass for me. It was a good capture for the last session, but as I said, I considered my time fishing and relaxing in Caloundra a good time regardless of whether I nailed something decent. Thanks again Ken!

Launched from ATB today at about 7:30am, and as I was motoring up Cowan, about 1/2km from ATB I noticed there was a fire.. I think the RFS were conducting a backburn, or training, or both because it was a small fire, and when I came back about midday, they had the RFS boats from Berowra and Dangar Island pumping water from the river, as well as a chopper that was picking up water from the river and bombing the fires. Was good to watch.. Here's the hill that was on fire: My mate Dan having a look when we got closer: The helicopter pickup: ..and dropping off:

I think I may float a lure fishing scenario that seems to come up a bit for me and see if I can get some help. The reason for needing help with this one is that my results are pretty piss poor generally, and the quantity of fish I pick up is well down on what it should be: While out the other day in the boat working a deep shoreline the sounder was picking up multiple larger fish amongst loads of bait, 10 meters down. The bait was all through the water column (I could see them towards the surface) but the predators were feeding deeper. I was working the shoreline with a 1/16 ounce jighead and a small fluke, but once the sounder picked up the fish, I moved to casting where I thought the predators were. So I tried to position the boat above the school, and after repeated casts I eventually came up tight on a trevor.. next fish was a tailor. However, the time between the first and second fish was about 15minutes! That represents a lot of casts for not too many fish. I tried to swap SPs to match the bait I was seeing in the water, but it was still pretty tough going.. I don't know if the problem is not knowing how deep to go with the lure, what technique I should be working with different SPs, what lure should I have on handy for this situation (assuming the target is trevally or tailor or salmon at this time of year). Is there a 'count down' technique that I should be using to make sure the lure is in the zone (are there rules of thumb for how quickly a 1/16 jig will sink in a medium current) So, whats the general technique and lure choice for working these types of fish at depths of 10m or more when they are feeding (assume medium current)? Too many questions..

umm... maybe its a longshot with all those 'George' clues but.. could it be... Lake George near Canberra ???

Many thanks guys..

Thanks guys. I met Wacko down at ATB on Saturday and he gave me a great demo and instruction on casting. He was throwing out 50-60ft casts pretty easily which was a joy to watch. I wish I could say I was doing the same.. but I guess practice makes perfect.

Can anyone explain to me what is the difference in performance, flexibility, or other, of rod blanks with different 'IM' specs? eg: I see advertising for IM-6, IM-7 and IM-8, but what does that mean??